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Saturday, October 4, 2008

Imagine that you are a 16 year old girl in a busy McDonalds with your cousins. Imagine that you are all that is standing between them and danger, when you look over and see a grown man verbally abusing them. With no thought for yourself, you step up to the plate and inform this man in no uncertain terms that he needs to check himself. Now is not the time for you to think about the language that you are using. You are direct and to the point. When he threatens to hit you if you swear again, you square your shoulders and call his bluff. Then the unthinkable happens. In front of his children and the family that you were protecting, he viciously physically assaults you. As you lie there unconscious no one but the little girl that you rushed to protect comes to your aid.....a busy packed McDonalds has just witnessed a grown black man repeatedly punch a young black woman, and no one, not a single person intervenes.

Though I have embedded this video, a more accurate one can be foundhere.

The police response, "these are tough times and I am sure that he was upset at something, and to have a little self restraint probably would have been a better idea. "

How many times are black women to be treated like this? How many times must our bodies bare the brunt of male violence and aggression? Black women have bled rivers of blood at the hands of men both black and white, and yet still no one can see this for crime that it truly is. Though the police are searching for him, how high of a priority is this case if they are already forming an excuse for his behaviour? Yeah the suspect was upset...

He was upset because a black woman had the nerve to stand up to him. He was upset because a black woman like so many before thwarted the rules of race and gender, and dared to address him as an equal. Violence is a real and ever present danger in the lives of WOC. That we continue to find the strength to fight back in the face of it, is a testimony to our strength.

Globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime. (UN Commission on the Status of Women, 2/28/00)

Among African American women in contemporary U.S. society, most rapes are intraracial, that is Black-on-Black assaults, rather than interracial, as is the case for most racial/ethnic groups, including White American women. Although Black women have been raped by strangers, more often their perpetrators were acquaintances and current or former intimates, such as cohabitating partners, dates, and boyfriends (Pierce-Baker, 1998; Robinson, 2002).

The number one killer of African-American females, ages 15 to 34, was homicide at the hands of an intimate partner or ex-partner (Bureau of Health Statistics, 1994; Sullivan and Rumptz, 1994)

Black women comprise 8% of the U.S. population, but account for 20% of the intimate partner homicide victims (Homicide Reports, 1976-1999)

For every African-American/Black woman that reports her rape, at least 15 African American/Black women do not report theirs (Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Hart & Rennison, 2003. U.S. Department of Justice)

Approximately one in three African American women are abused by a husband or partner in the course of a lifetime, (US Department of Justice, Findings from the NVAWS, July 2000.

African American females experience intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and about 2.5 times the rate of women of other races, (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2001)

Approximately 40% of Black women report coercive contact of a sexual nature by age 18. (National Black Women’s Health Project)

African Americans have the highest rate of violent victimization of any racial group (31.2 per 1000) (US department of Justice)

Researchers have found disturbingly high rates of rape among impoverished Black women. As evidence, 42% of Black women residents in a low-income housing development had engaged in unwanted sex because a male partner had threatened or actually used force to obtain sexual access (Kalichman, Williams, Cherry, Belcher, & Nachimson, 1998). In a community sample, more than half (67%) of the low-income, welfare dependent Black women had experienced a previous sexual assault (Honeycutt, Marshall, & Weston, 2001). It appears that Black women recognize their vulnerability. In Wyatt's (1992) sample, the majority (76%) of African American survivors attributed their rape to the riskiness of their living situations (e.g., “I was living in a bad neighborhood”). For example, poor women may have jobs that demand long and inflexible hours or rely on public transportation, which requires them to travel through public housing or high crime areas at night.

This is daily what we open our eyes to every single morning, and yet we are routinely told don't get angry, don't you dare express rage, this is your lot in life. Our role is to be the social punching bag of all, and smile with pleasure with each fell of the proverbial lash. Thank you sir may I have another, is the fantasy of men when they see us, and for black women it is the soundtrack of a living nightmare from which there is no release.

That we continue to maintain our sanity in a society that views us as little more than prey is a testament to our inner fortitude. Inside though, in the dark places that we fear to visit, the pain is real and ever lasting. We cannot afford to publicly weep, we cannot afford to allow our bruises to see the light of day, for who will care and who will wail at the site of our brown bodies laid waste in the sun? There is much lip service to ending violence against women, there is much lip service to ending racism and yet daily the markers of racism and sexism are burned into our flesh; a living reminder that the world still views us as less than.

I dream of the mountaintop. I dream of the day when I shall grasp the hand of my sister and in the other the hand of my foremother with the knowledge that we have been redeemed. I dream of the day when the wind will no longer carry our song of anguish and the earth that our blood has nourished becomes fertile and lush. Such is the whim of my fantasy that in face of what can be deemed no less than calculated genocide, that I should look still look upon this earth with hope and love.

321 comments:

I have said this a million times Renee, and I am gonna say it again here...

My Father taught me early on in life, never to hit a woman, and as I sit here typing, in all 43 years I have lived, I have never laid any type of hands on a woman in anger... And I just love saying that, because I am so proud that I have not sunk to that level, like so many other men have.

To this day, and every time I tell people this, I can still flashback like it was just yesterday, sitting on a circular rug on the floor of our living room, a little boy I was, my Mother in one Lazy Boy chair, and my Father in the other...

His exact words were....

"If I ever even hear of you hitting a woman, I will fucking kill you myself."

He had said that because we were in the front yard just minutes earlier, and my dad and I saw the next door neighbor hit his wife, and my father had taken my big yellow tonka truck from the yard, held it by the back axle, walked straight up to him, and hit him square in the face with it, and told him he was calling the cops.

For some reason, I still can't get that out of my head, and I am glad I can't. Seeing the little kids watching that in the video you posted... Just ain't fittin...

I am not going to justify this man's actions in the least. As an adult he should have used better judgement and just ignored whatever was said. However, I am going to say this: are you aware of how foul-mouthed, ill-mannered, ignorant and entitled (yes, entitled) young people are today? Do you realize how completely lacking in respect for others they are? Not all of them, but a very large number are. They have no home training, no manners and no sense of what is right and acceptable. Their behavior towards perfect strangers is outrageous and makes you wonder what their own families put up with. I can understand this man's feelings, but I can't condone his behavior. I've experienced the same and just ignore it because children have been taught they don't have to obey any rules, no one has the right to tell them what to do and they are "special". If you call them on any of the above, you as the adult, are wrong and seen as the guilty party. Clearly this man was wrong and sends out the wrong message to his own children but we DO NOT know what was said on either side - not really. I'm betting it was something that pushed him over an edge he was already halfway off.

I watched both linked videos and read the statistics in horror. To dismiss this as someone having a bad day is to dismiss violence perpetrated on women everywhere.

It doesn't matter what that girl said, it doesn't matter what her attitude or that of her friends or teens in general, there is no excuse for what this man did to her in front of his own children. It's too easy to blame the victim as is done in most cases surrounding violence to women. The "she asked for it" male point of view doesn't float.

I hope this young girl recovers from any injuries she sustained, gets proper counseling as well as the children of this man who belongs behind bars. There is no excuse good enough to dismiss his behavior.

I am aghast not only at the white cop saying the guy should have "used restraint", but the black man on the 2nd video saying that it was a "bad example" and that a man should never do something like that "in front of his children". What, it's okay to beat the shit out of a 16 year old girl if your kids aren't watching?

And Anonymous (whoever the heck you are...you should at least have the courage of your convictions to leave a name), it doesn't matter what that girl did, said or acted. Physical violence is uncalled for. Always! If he thought she was out of line, he could call the cops and have her charged with disturbing the peace. He can verbally give back as good as he got. But he may not...ever...resort to physical violence.

It just stuns me the number of people blaming the victim here. Just stuns me. The last time I saw a man hit a woman, my sister had to hold me back because I was going to go over and kick him (he'd kicked his wife, needless to say I was pissed).

I remember when I was working in HR at a local university and we had a worker convicted of domestic assault, and the head of his department told us, "You have to remember, these are blue collar workers, and they have issues." I thought they should fire the department boss for being such an idiot as to excuse domestic violence and to suggest that it was just a blue collar problem. I can tell you right now, I'm from a working class background, and my father and grandfather would have been appalled to think they were expected to solve their problems with violence and especially against a woman. They were both mild mannered men, but nothing would set them off faster than a man hitting a woman or a child.

Stop excusing people who use violence. Call it out as the heinous act that it is. Stop the violence against women!

How would this story be any different is the victim were a male? Or a white male? Or if the attacker were Asian?

This guy is just an asshole. Plain and simple. Bad people come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and creeds. Honestly, had I been there, I would have pepper sprayed the bastard. I don't stand for violence PERIOD.

@cchiovitti...What this young woman endured is just a small example of black women daily live with. I hate to be the one to point out, that there is an imbalance in power socially and those that occupy the bottom rung are repeatedly abused. I am not saying that violence against anyone is appropriate but what I am pointing out is that black women suffer a disproportionate amount of violence based on the percentage of the population that the makeup. This can only be explained by race and gender bias.

If you google "Collateral Damage in the War on drugs" the first link is to a paper by Graham Boyd that made me think of your blog and think it's a disgrace that the war on drugs and growing prison population doesn't seem to be an issue in this American election. Very interesting paper yet sad and shocking.

Let me make one thing clear - I was a victim of domestic violence by my Black husband for 15 years - and yes, I'm Black. I was raped by him, beaten bloody by him, had my head put through walls and even beaten in public on the street - many times in front of our 3 sons. I don't need a lecture on what it means to be a victim, a lecture on what isn't acceptable, a lecture on the violence Black women suffer at the hands of Black men everyday. I was lucky, I got out and have survived without violence in my life for 13 years.

Had you gotten past your outrage that I would even CONSIDER offering an opinion as to what MAY have been going through his head you would have noticed that I gave no excuses for his behavior as well as pointing out the example he was setting for his own children.

Now, let's look at the kind of children we're raising. The kind of moral bankruptcy we've imparted to them. The idea that they can talk to anyone, anytime like they're beneath them. Really? Is that ok? Is that acceptable? Is that any better than what that man did to that young girl?

When I was a little girl back in the 60s/70s, if I talked back to ANY adult I could expect either a smack in the mouth or being marched back home by the ear for my parents to discipline me. Respect for adults was a given, not a choice. In today's world, if you even LOOK like you're going to correct a foul-mouthed, aggressive child you better a) make sure you have an attorney on speed dial, b) hope the police are nearby, c) hope you have witnesses and d) PRAY that child doesn't have a weapon/group of friends to shut you down.

We'll never know all of the circumstances surrounding that attack. But my money is on the teenager provoking him. Sadly, she provoked someone who was already unstable.

Again, I neither condone, approve or excuse his actions. But I don't excuse hers either.

"I dream of the mountaintop. I dream of the day when I shall grasp the hand of my sister and in the other the hand of my foremother with the knowledge that we have been redeemed. I dream of the day when the wind will no longer carry our song of anguish and the earth that our blood has nourished becomes fertile and lush. Such is the whim of my fantasy that in face of what can be deemed no less than calculated genocide, that I should look still look upon this earth with hope and love."

@Renee-I dream of this as well. I am for nonviolence and I am committed to it in all aspects of my life. I hope that my actions and way of life can help in building a momentum to heal. That everyone can live peaceful and nonviolent lives.

@Greer...I let it got the first time but I won't let a second misrepresentation of the facts go by. This altercation started when the grown adult man decided to be verbally abusive of a little girl...The victim was speaking in defense of a child who this man (note: stranger to the child) was yelling loudly at for supposedly budding in line. You speak about youth respect, what right had a grown man to yell and scream at a small girl child for some perceived lack of etiquette on her part. Let met tell you if someone had screamed at my child like that or my brothers when we were little children I would have put their damn bully ass in check to.And another thing, you old timely children don't respect us like they used to need to learn to display respect for children and truly honor them. Adults want respect yet we physically abuse them and call it spanking to justify it, emotionally abuse them, starve them and so all manner of horrors to them and yet a child says fuck and the world has to cave in. We send them to run down schools with little hope of real education...addict them high fat fast food to set up horrible eating habits for life etc and etc and you think the word fuck is bad. Think about what we adults routinely subject children to and a word somehow won't seem so bad.

I know what some adults subject children to. I know that in a perfect world all children would be loved and treasured and allowed to be CHILDREN. Not have to grow up before their time, not have to take on adult responsibilities, not have to fight off sexual predators at home or in the street. Not have to worry about being beaten because the person that is their caregiver "had a bad day". They would have a warm, clean place to live and wholesome food on the table. They would have access to excellent education and the world at their feet. Unfortunately the world isn't like this.

See, not only did my husband beat me, but after we were divorced and my 2 oldest sons went to live with him he abused them as well. He went to jail (for a day) for being drunk and pistol whipping my (then) 17 year old. We're a family recovering from an abusive Black male.

Yes, adults have to earn a certain amount of respect. The world has changed enough for that to be a fact. However children also have to give a certain amount of respect to adults just _because_ they're children.

I don't know about any of you, but it's always been important to me to understand WHY people do the things they do. Regardless of the action, what drives a person to that point. What makes them feel they are entitled to act the way they do. What was going on in their head. That was the core of my original comment. I apologize if I wasn't clear.

Again, you're disregarding the fact that I have not condoned or justified any of the behaviors in the video. Not. One. Yes, the adult was unbelieveably out of line in each instance. The child was just being a child. The teens were also out of line and could have chosen a less aggressive path. And any other adults that were there should be ashamed of themselves for not stepping in before the situation escalated.

What I'm reading is meeting violence with violence is ok. Is it really? Doesn't that make you just as wrong as the initiator? What does that teach the person you're "defending" especially if it's a child? Whatever happened to non-violent, passive resistence? MLK and Ghandi must be spinning in their graves if we've decided to move past those concepts.

So taking a cue from the above, I will bow out of both this conversation and refrain from participating in the future. I have more than enough skin in the game for the premise of this blog but it appears I'm from a generation who's time is past.

I am HORRIFIED by this! Not only is she a woman, she is only 16, she is a child! Whatever she said is completely irrelevant! I pray for this dear abused child and the innocent children of the monster that abused her.

Does anyone know which police precinct this is? I think letters of concern are in order. Also, I really don't know if the white cop's words were intentionally callous. I suspect that he chose his words carefully because of the bad press that white cops have when dealing with black men. Not certain about that, but just a guess.

It doesn't even matter if he felt provoked - he still battered her because she dared to stand up for and defend her younger sibling. If anyone wants to talk about how young people learn to behave or misbehave, what kind of lesson does that teach?

Unfortunately...16 year old girls are seen as grown up women now days...they can have sex...have babies...and get beat...just like grown women everywhere...so ...go on and beat them...and stand back while the world (mostly male world) brushes it aside with a few excuses as to why its "bad" but "understandable"...

The state of the world today tells me that men in general have been lead to believe they dont need to bother controlling themselves...its us victims that need to "be good" and "dont provoke him" in order to keep ourselves safe...fuck em...we need more Thelma and Louise type action...now and then.

Woah.Firstly, I'm 100% with renee and maritzia; the child's behaviour shouldn't even rate a mention because to do so is to compare it to the man's actions, and it's incomparable. it's like saying that the rape victim wore a short skirt. and it's pointless to single out 'children' or 'young people' as particularly rude or aggressive because any person can be like that... it's not some new phenomenon that some entitled adults feel they don't get 'the respect they deserve'. Secondly, WTF? If this happened to me, a middleclass white girl, I'd be able to buy a house with the lawsuit money I'd get from this incident. I wonder what justice this girl will get.

cchiovitti, the difference is that if it were a white or asian woman being brutalized, someone most likely would have jumped to her rescue, tried to diffuse the situation, or tried help her in some way. This is something I, myself, have seen and experienced firsthand. I was once attacked by a crack addict wielding an almost empty beer bottle on the subway many years ago. He got upset that I didn't want to share his beer with him, and after I continued to say "No, thank you" and "leave me alone" many times, the situation escalated with him continuing to harass me verbally. He then threw the beer bottle at me, (which I blocked and slapped down), and when he then came at me, I just started kicking, knocking him away from me and onto the floor. He'd get up come at me again, and I'd kick him away again. This went on for a good 30 seconds or so. The subway doors finally opened, and I kicked him right out of the train. I never kicked so hard in my life.

The entire time, there were several men on the train (all of them black, by the way) and not one of them moved a muscle to come and help me or try to stop it. I was COMPLETELY on my own. They might as well have been watching a movie... someone should have passed them around a bowl of popcorn, really. I could tell you other stories, and I do have more than just a few, but that one is an example of how it goes for most Black women being assaulted or harassed out here. You are ON YOUR OWN. NOBODY steps up to help you. There is this perception by everybody that we somehow deserve it.I saw a white woman arguing with a man who almost hit her with his car while she crossed the street. After some heated exchanges of words, the man jumped out of his car and started towards her, yelling and calling her a stupid bitch. THE MOMENT he did that, 3 men, two white, one latino, all unrelated, jumped from the sidewalk and into the fray, and stopped the man from doing anything whatsoever to this woman. I will NEVER forget the speed with which they decided to step in and help her. It's something that NEVER happens for me. THAT's the point of this article. This goes on DAILY on that level and so many others.It's a reality you will probably rarely face.

First of all: Holy crap. Not only for the story, but for the number of victim-blaming a$sh0les here, male or female, previously victim themselves or not, who are under the dangerously sick impression that any girl asks for a beating by a grown man by saying ANYTHING at all.

But that's not what I came to comment for. Regarding point #2: I thought that all rape was done primarily by "acquaintances and current or former intimates", for white victims as well. Is this not true? And if it is, I'm a little surprised if it's usually interracial for white women, since white women don't seem to have the number of other-race acquaintences and dates that I'd expect to account for the rape rate.

"And if it is, I'm a little surprised if it's usually interracial for white women, since white women don't seem to have the number of other-race acquaintences and dates that I'd expect to account for the rape rate."

You're reading the paragraph wrong, because it's kind of awkwardly written. Black women suffer mostly intra-racial rape, as do White and Asian women. The "as is the case" is referring back to the situation for Black women rather than the "rather than interracial".

To the best of my knowledge the only women in the US who suffer more interracial than intraracial rape are Native Americans, who are mostly raped by White men, in part because in the US the hodgepodge of law surrounding the reservations means that it's effectively impossible to prosecute a non-Native citizen who rapes a Native woman on the reservation unless you can physically catch him in the act then and there.

And I agree that there is no excuse, whatsoever, for a grown man to *ever* hit a teen girl, and the more so if she was defending a young child. I don't care if she called him an asshole and said that he has sex with goats, there is no excuse. Ever. Talking about how kids nowadays are disrespectful has *nothing* to do with this situation, and it's exactly like talking about how women nowadays are sluts when you're discussing a situation where someone was raped. You can say all you want "I don't condone this man's behavior" but just the fact that you bothered to bring up that teens are disrespectful means that some part of you thinks that that excuses what the guy did, or at least explains it. It's not even an adequate explanation.

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About Me

I am the mother of two darling little boys that fill my life with hope. They have inspired me to help raise awareness of the issues that plague this little blue planet.
If you are looking for a blog that is all about how wonderful and rosy this world is, turn right because this space will not be for you. I am a committed humanist. I believe in the value of people over commodities. I believe in the human right to food, clothing, shelter, and education. I am pacifist, anti-racist, WOC. My truth may not be your truth, but I intend to speak it nonetheless.
Please feel free to direct questions or commentary womanistmusings@gmail.com